Silent Moments

On a dark and dreary day in Edinburgh...

This wasn’t where I wanted to be. I was sitting in a taxi on a freezing wintry November evening stuck in traffic on Edinburgh’s Princess Street. Staring at my reflection in the taxi’s window I didn’t know the person that was looking back at me, I didn’t know his face. I had sallow skin, massive bags under my eyes and a grey motionless expression.

I wanted to be back home in my cosy flat with my girlfriend Holly making dinner and watching crap on the TV. Back when everything was normal.

The weekend before last had been my brother John’s stag do. Twelve of our best mates travelled down to London for a weekend of booze and banter. We all arrived on Friday afternoon and headed straight down the nearest drinking hole for a weekend of carnage. Later that evening we headed to a club I have no idea where it was or what is called but it was in that nameless club that I met her. She was called Lucy she had big blue eyes, pale skin and wore a tight black dress.
I don’t think I need to tell you what happened in the following hours I’m pretty sure you can figure it out yourself. But the next morning when I woke up in her flat I was sick literally and emotionally. I felt like I had been punched in the gut by a group of gangsters that only ate pies. I faked a sick bug to the boys and spent the day lying in bed in greed induced coma.
When I got home the following day she knew. She never said a word but I know she knew. In the silent moments she wouldn’t look at me in the eye, when I entered the room she would stiffen and quickly leave. It was at that point that I knew it was over, my life as I knew it and loved it was over.
On the way home from work in an act of desperation I went past a lingerie sale and picked her up a present. Thinking that that would plaster over this horrible thing that I had done to us and now sitting in a taxi on a freezing wintry November evening stuck in traffic on Edinburgh’s Princess Street I didn’t know what to do.
As I walked through the door of our flat she stared at me tears rolling down her face and said ‘This isn’t where I want to be’.